Archive of Our Own

There are three things I'm missing that you'd never be able to tell when you first meet me. The first is that I have eighty percent vision loss in my right eye. When I was three I sustained several corneal abrasions from what the ophthalmologist determined to be a small splinter. My mom told me she nearly sideswiped another car on the highway in her rush to get to our usual children's hospital when I woke up that morning and told her I could only see light and dark when I covered the left side of my face with my hand.

The second is that I'm missing the very tip of my tongue. It's enough that when I talk, someone who's listening very closely might think I have a slight speech impediment. It doesn't fit flush against the back of my teeth anymore. T's aren't so bad, but until you're missing an uneven six millimeters at the end, you don't realize how delicate a T-H sound is. That one might have happened over time and was a little harder to notice.

The third is that I never have, and despite a lot of expensive experimental treatment to try to correct, probably never will feel the sensation of pain.

These are the three things that I'm missing that you'd never be able to tell when you first meet me, but I don't normally tell people unless they ask. Now I know they're the kind of things a certain type of person would really have preferred to know in advance.

The man from the bar.

The man from the bar and I looked at each other, at a bit of an impasse.

“See,” he began, “I'm not too surprised you didn't react to the first one.” He tapped the thumbtack he had pressed into the pad of my index finger what could have been seconds or minutes ago. “Loads of folks don't know what it'll be like and think it'll be easier if they put up a strong front. Or that maybe if they don't scream, I'll go easier on 'em.” He gave an amiable and befuddled looking European sort of shrug to show what he thought of that. “It's really the second one where you learn more about that type. When they're already anticipating what it'll feel like.” He tapped the second thumbtack, the one he had made sure would hit the bone in my thumb.

He wanted a reaction, that much was clear. And I could scream. I knew how to. But there was a sort of piercing look in his eyes that made me think that it was too late to try that, and that we had both learned something that would be hard to gloss over.

“Even the boring ones with the brave faces at least flinch.” I could smell his sweat from how close he was, squatting on the poured cement floor in front of me to be on my level. One of his work boots squeaked, and I looked down to see faded brown stains all around us.

Sorry, mom. I don't think I'll make it out of here. I always did hate making you cry.

He stood and began to circle me where I was tied around the middle to a support beam. I tried to turn my head but couldn't see all the way around.

“So,” came his voice, “Maybe my usual methods aren't gonna work to help you answer when I ask you something, but I'm gonna ask anyway. 'Cause, you know, I like getting to know people.”

I nodded to show I was listening. He came back around.

“And you're hiding something. That's no fun for me, y'see. I'm doing my best here getting to know you! My feelings are hurt, honest to god.” His grin didn't falter as he pressed his hand to his heart and made his way behind me again.

I felt a finger lightly touch my hair. Spoke up before thinking it all the way through. Knowing somewhere I'd have to have done anyway.

“I can feel when and where I'm being touched. It just can't be painful.” He stopped walking. I couldn't see his face, but I could sense that there had been some kind of shift.

“Huh! You know, I'd heard of that, but this is the first time I'm seeing it.”

“Does that make this interesting or boring to you?” He laughed.

“You're funny. You should talk more, you've got a funny sense of humor.”

He came back around and I could see now that his posture was more relaxed. Not knowing why I was acting the way I was had put him on edge and I hadn't even noticed behind how lively he had been acting.

“I think most people would call it dry.”

“Mhm, that's it. Dry.” He turned to the workbench in front of me and pulled a pack of cigarettes and a lighter out of a top drawer. Lighting up, he leaned back against it and considered me. “Makes sense. Canada being an ex-British colony and all.”

Before the second thumbtack, he had seemed almost sexually excited. Any traces of that were all but gone. Now he just looked and sounded curious.

“So? Tell me about not feeling pain!”

I thought on it for a moment, watching his eyes glitter.

“I've been told to describe it like Novocaine and laughing gas. If you've ever had oral surgery, it feels like that. Have you ever cut a piece of meat with a pair of scissors?”

“Matter of fact, I have.” His smile was delighted and didn't bother being coy.

“Well. It's like that. You can feel it being cut, but it doesn't hurt. It's, you know, pressure. You're just on the opposite end of it.”

“Interesting...”

I didn't know if being interesting was a good thing, but I had enough sense to know that based on how he said it before, being boring definitely wasn't.

“How do they diagnose that sort of thing? Just try a bunch of pain stimuli to see if you react?”

“It's usually pretty easy to tell. Kids with this condition, especially, they get burned a lot. Can't tell when they should pull their hand away from a pot on the stove or if bathwater is too hot.” He hummed. “You learn to approach everything like it can kill you pretty fast.”

“You're not doing much of a job of it here.” He laughed at his little joke, like it was the funniest thing in the world. He tapped away ash, letting it fall to the floor. “Did you know that there are different types of pain receptors? For heat and chemical burns and electricity?”

“Yes.”

“Natürlich. Sie würden alles darüber wissen. Well!” He stubbed out his cigarette and scrubbed at his stubble. Without another word, he went back into the workbench and pulled out what appeared to be a car battery. “We've got some interesting things to try, in that case.”

He brought it over to me and put his hand out.

“Paw,” he said. Seeing the look on my face, he laughed, and grabbed me by the wrist of the hand pierced with thumbtacks. He clamped a node around each one. The squeezing force from the one in my thumb wasn't enough to crack the bone, but I could feel something straining. He looked into my eyes, and there was something there other than excitement. Annoyance, maybe. Then he turned the dial.

My arm jerked up without my telling it to, and my hand balled into a tight fist. They just... contracted, and there was a feeling like hard vibration or buzzing. The battery made a fast, harsh clicking sound.

“Would ya look at that. So electricity doesn't do it either, huh?” he muttered, as if to himself. “Wow. Ren's gonna be jealous of you.” He turned the dial down enough that my arm unfolded, but left enough current so that my fingers twitched.

“Who's Ren?”

“Hm? Oh.” He appeared to be thinking. He then reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a small device. It looked like the remote to a tiny RC car or a classroom laser pointer. He pressed the large red button on the center of it and there was a loud thud above us. “That's Ren,” he said by way of explanation.

I doubted Ren was some kind of robot, so it must be a person. Or maybe a dog.

There was a tentative knock on the basement door. He looked at me, excited and encouraging, as if he was a kid about to show off something very special.

“S-Strade? Did you need something?” The voice was a boy's. Very soft, and very fearful. Strade (that's right, his name was Strade), paid no heed to that.

“Yeah, buddy. Come down here a sec!”

The first thing I saw was a pair of feet unlike any I had seen before. Instead of toenails, they ended in curved claws that scratched against the stairs as they made their way down.

“You'll like him. Both of you are rare. Yeah, rare specimens.”

Ren was hugging himself with scarred arms. Crowning the top of his head of bright ginger hair was a pair of pointed ears plastered down in the universal mammal language of terror. And he had a tail, a big, fluffy, white-tipped tail like a fox, and it was lashing hard and fast. Around his neck was a collar that looked like a manacle.

“Well, don't be rude. Say hi.”

I wasn't sure if he was talking to me or Ren, but Ren was the first to jump to follow his instructions.

“Hi. I'm Ren.”

“Hi, Ren,” I replied reflexively.

“Rare, didn't I tell you?” he said, beaming with pride. “And well trained to boot.” He snapped his fingers, which obviously meant something, because Ren almost sprinted over to the work bench and stood at attention.

“I want you to try this,” Strade said to him. “I don't think it'll be the same just from watching. Pick something good.” Ren's hand hovered over a handheld belt sander. “Not that good, kid, Jesus. You gotta build up to that sorta thing. This is more of a proof of concept.” He went into the drawer and pulled out a small mechanical stapler gun instead. The kind people used to attach flyers to a billboard. “That'll do fine.”

For a few seconds more, Ren stood there reluctantly. Strade sighed, and then Ren skittered over to where I was tied up and lowered himself onto his knees. He reached for my arm-

“No, arm's boring. Barely any nerves there.” And dropped his hand. Then, and this time I saw him trembling, he picked up my foot. I felt the claw in his thumb on my arch. “Her foot? Ha! You really are a little sicko.”

The claw was replaced by metal, right in the center of the bottom of my foot.

His eyes met mine in the moment before he did it. I think it was on purpose, because underneath the fear I could see something pleading and apologetic. Then the staple entered flesh. It was tiny, just two pinpoints of puncturing sensation. More than that, I could feel the way his hands and body tensed up. His eyes were screwed shut.

“You missed the whole thing,” Strade said, clearly exasperated. He pressed the button of the remote he was still holding. Ren seized up, but didn't fall to the floor. The clicking sound was back, the same one the battery still attached to my hand made. “You're gonna have to do it again, you know that, right? And keep your eyes open this time!”

Ren opened his eyes and tears were threatening to spill over.

“Make it quick. We gotta be careful with this one. Can't quite tell when's time to let off.”

When Strade came back to the basement the next day, he was holding something. It was a collar, just like the one that had been around Ren's neck. He held my head firm and locked it in place. It was heavy.

“I've got some things to figure out about you,” he said. “And while I do, I've still gotta earn money, ya get me? So, even if you can't feel it,” he took out the remote that he used to shock Ren. “This is still set to send a lethal level of current through ya if you leave a certain radius around the house.” He pressed the button, and all the muscles of my body contracted. “Don't make me do that too much. If it's enough to cause that kinda involuntary reaction, it's enough to fry ya.”

“Alright.”

I guess that meant I was alive for now. I hoped that meant he hadn't killed Ren to put this on me, but I figured he wasn't about to part with a rare specimen.

“'Alright.'” He chuckled. “You're awfully cheeky, in a dead-eyed kinda way. Not feeling pain really makes you a little funny in the head, doesn't it?”

“Fuck off.”

“Bahaha! Well, you've still got pride in there.” He flicked my forehead to indicate where he meant. “But jeez, you must not even know what it feels like to have a skinned knee,” he said in wonderment.

“No,” I agreed.

“Wow. Unbroken really might be a state of mind.” I looked up at him.

“What's that? A mantra?” He chuckled.

“A hypothesis.”

“This sucks,” Strade announced. He had kicked me hard enough in the chest that it was turning red almost instantly. The tile of the kitchen floor I was made to sit on was probably sucking out my body heat. “You're supposed to be a little more, I don't know, attention-holding? What the hell is your problem?”

“I can't give you a good reaction because I don't feel fear.” He pulled a beer out of the fridge, took a swig, and swallowed.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean? Here.” He passed me the beer he had taken a sip from. I drank.

“It's from the same partial chromosomal deletion,” I explained. “But I like to think about it as stemming from the lack of pain response. They're interrelated.”

“No shit? So you don't feel fear at all?”

“No. I don't feel thrill or adrenaline either.” I took another sip and passed it back to him. For a moment it felt weirdly... normal.

“So why were you at the bar that night?”

“What?”

“If you don't do adrenaline,” he said, like it was some kind of drug, “Then there's no sensation chasing. So, why were you at a bar?”

“Oh.” I was a little taken aback. “I don't know. I think I do it so people think I'm normal and don't worry about me. My mom used to drag me all over so that I wasn't sitting alone in the house. So it's better to just occasionally do things like go to bars so that kind of thing doesn't happen.”

“Is that why you said you wanted to come home with me? You're a funny one.”

“Ah. That.”

“Yes. That. Why me?”

I looked at him. He wasn't very tall, was older than I usually went for, and generally looked like he didn't put a lot of care into his appearance. Not much less than most men, but enough to notice in the shininess of his hair. He drank as he waited, oddly patient, for me to respond.

“You came up and talked to me, that's why. I guess I did notice that your eyes were a little too wide at the time. You looked a little manic.” His smile turned curious.

“That's the kind of guy you like to sleep with? So much for not sensation chasing. They might be distant evolutionary warnings, but they were there. Fear is a sensation.”

“Well, yes, I know.” I felt myself starting to grow irritated. “You're the one who brought that up. I didn't seek you out. I told you, you came up to me.”

“But noticing what you did didn't put you off. It's a sensation, even if it's a dull one that doesn't give you any kind of self preservation instinct. Fear tends to be the last one people can get rid of. They just find different ways to react to it. I had to admit, I thought you were real different at first. Like a dog that had never been kicked before, but without the chipper attitude.”

I immediately thought of Ren, and wondered if he had been like that at first.

“You know, you're the first person I've had to get to know by talking to in quite a while.”

“That must be pretty boring for you.”

He looked nonplussed for a second, then burst out laughing. A big, booming laugh.

“Not bad-boring,” he managed through the chuckles. “Maybe different-boring.”

Different-boring. Huh.

“You wanna hear what I think?” he asked.

I waved him on.

“You've got fears. You know, there's loads of kinds of fears. Phobias.” He raised his thumb, “Fear of physical pain, of course, even if you don't have that one.” Index finger. “Fear of people leaving you.” Middle finger. “Fear of being nothing or nobody.” Ring finger and pinky. “They're big motivators. Maybe the biggest motivators a person can have. I like knowing them. Learning things. It's like a shortcut into looking at someone's psyche.”

“I know you do,” my voice coming out a bit exasperated. But... “What about the most obvious one?”

He paused.

“What's that, liebling?”

“The one so big no one can let it in completely. The fear of death.”

“I thought you said you didn't feel any kind of fear.”

“Well, sure. It's hard to comprehend. I don't have much capacity for it. But because of that, I know more what fear of death is like, because it's the same sort of fear that any other I have is. There's still all those neural pathways there, even if they're disconnected at a point. Maybe the reason I can't let it in is different, but I can think about it for that same reason.”

His smile didn't drop, but there was something different about it now.

“You're a funny one.”

It was still dark when I woke up to the feeling of a hand in my underwear.

“You're awake? Can you feel this?”

Strade had his arm wrapped around me in something resembling an affectionate gesture. Still, I could feel that he was using his nails on me. I looked down and saw that he had ripped the covers off. His arm was crossed over our bodies, hand undulating with his movements. Long, red scratch marks stood out against my thighs, even without any lights on. He must have left them before I had woken up.

“I can feel it.”

“'I can feel it,'” he parroted nastily, digging his nails in further. “Is that all you have to say?”

“Why? Am I being too boring?”

“Yes,” he said, pressing his thumb into my clit. “You are. You're boring. Your reactions are boring. Don't you want to live? You should be trying a little harder to make sure I don't get tired of you.”

It occurred to me dimly that he did have a point, even if it was only by his own internal logic. I was here on his terms, so it was the only logic that really mattered. And if that were the case-

I lifted my head and pressed my lips against his mouth. He let out a little noise of surprise and pulled back.

“You aren't attracted to me,” he said, and his tone might have been suspicious or accusing.

“No,” I said honestly. “But I thought this might be interesting.” I pressed my closed mouth to his again, feeling an equal lack of passion on his side as mine. He yanked my underwear down to my knees. I pulled them off the rest of the way.

“Stop fucking smothering any interest I have in this.”

“Why? You don't have any anyway.” I ghosted my fingers over the placket of his jeans in demonstration. He didn't seem to be getting more than halfway hard. He wrapped one large hand around my throat and slammed my head down. I lay there as he fumbled with his cock, trying to stroke himself ready enough.

I was used to unceremoniously checking whether I was wet enough for nothing to tear. Was there any point to doing that right now? He drove in before I could decide, never moving his hand from my throat.

“Can't you at least cry or something?” I tried thinking about how my mom would feel never finding my corpse to squeeze a few out.

Ren and I were curled up on opposite ends of the couch watching an old DVD box set of a medical procedural when I heard a piercing shriek come up from the basement.

“Oh.” It was only one syllable, but it was still nervous and apologetic at the same time. “Should I get my headphones for you? They're up in my room.”

I looked at him. He didn't look especially afraid or surprised for his own sake. If anything, he was acting like I was a house guest that was privy to some sudden, uncomfortable family drama.

“Don't you want to block it out?” I asked him.

“No, I'm, uh, I'm probably more... used to it... than you are.” He was trembling, but in his steady gaze seemed resolved that if anyone was going to have relief from the sounds, it would be me. Another scream came from the basement. I did my best not to think about the person down there, the person who could feel pain and fear, or about the fact that nothing I would ever feel in my life would come remotely close to what they were being put through on their final days.

“Why don't we just turn up the volume?” I reached for the remote.

“NO!” he said urgently, grabbing the back of my hand with his own. A tiny bead of blood appeared where his nail pricked the skin. He recoiled. “Sorry. But we can't. Strade doesn't like interruptions when he's busy.”

...

“Okay.”

Strade dropped hard into a chair at the kitchen table and cracked open a beer. Ren and I had decided the best course of action would be to make dinner so that both of us could take our attention off what was happening. I washed vegetables in cold water while he chopped. It was a good system.

“First one since I was unlucky enough to pick you up. This one's a good screamer. Good bleeder, too.”

I fanned out the layers of the leek I was holding under the stream of water to remove the trapped silt.

“Oh,” I said.

“You learn more about someone this way, after all. Much more exciting and intimate that way. It's very sad for you that you can't have that.”

I pictured what his victim must look like now. Could be a man or a woman. Definitely tied up. Maybe passed out on the floor. I had read that it was easier to be unconscious when the body was in terrible pain. Gave it a chance to start to recover. Made it less... bad.

“I'm sure.”

He was quiet for a second, then-

“You really piss me off.”

“What?”

“Don't just say 'what,'” the word came out mock-pathetic and whinging, “Like you don't know.” Ren had stopped chopping and was stock still next to me.

“What the hell am I supposed to say to that, then?”

“I don't fucking know! God, don't you want me to not fucking kill you?!” He stormed over and grabbed the knife from Ren's hand. He seized my hair and held the blade flush against my neck. “Huh?!”

He wasn't much taller than me, but stronger. He held his arm high so my feet didn't totally touch the floor.

“I don't know.”

“What?!”

“I. Don't. Know. You want a real answer, there it is. I guess I don't want the people who know me to be sad over it. That's just adding chaos to the world.”

“Jesus fucking Christ.” He let go and I dropped to the floor. I touched my neck. There was blood on my hand. “You fucking lunatic.”

“Strade loves you.”

“What?” But I heard him, and it registered. We were back on the couch. Ren got next day shipping on second pair of headphones. I took them off to answer.

“No, he doesn't.”

“He does. He loves you and he cares about you, even if it's, you know, warped. Even if he doesn't say it.” My grip on the headphones tightened.

“He doesn't love me or care about me, Ren. Maybe he feels that way about you, again, with the caveat that it's basically unrecognizably warped. But that's because you can give him the one thing he wants. I can't. I'm just 'rare.' To Strade, I'm an interesting conundrum.”

Ren shook his head.

“I don't think so. I've been here a lot longer than you, so I have a better idea about it.”

“I don't think being here longer makes you more clear-headed about this,” sounding so bitter I surprised myself.

“Of course it doesn't!” he snapped. He never snapped at me. I looked at him. “I'm not stupid. I know this,” he waved vaguely at the house, “is changing me. Making me less like a normal person. But I'm more in Strade's reality than anyone else who isn't about to die under his knife. And you know that's the truth.”

And I did.

But Ren...

I don't want to be part of that reality.

I didn't know what else to do, so I found myself standing in the living room long after Ren went up to his room to sleep. It was quiet in the basement now, except for muted shuffling. I had no idea what the person down there was like. I didn't know the first thing about them, except what they sounded like when they screamed.

It was over now.

The sound of Strade's boots were heavy coming up the stairs. It was totally quiet aside from that. All the lights were off. No white noise. The basement door opened softly.

His gloves were off, so his hands were clean, but other than that he was spattered in blood. Even his face had caught stray flecks. He looked tired, like he had just exerted himself, sweat on his face only partially dried.

“You're awake,” he noted.

“Couldn't sleep.”

He sat on the couch and patted it next to him. I took the place beside him. He lit up a cigarette and offered it to me. I took it. The nicotine made me relax the tiniest bit.

I had never asked his age, but I knew Strade couldn't be that old. Probably mid-thirties based on how he usually was, but if someone looked now, they might say he was fifty at least.

“No pain. No fear. Some people would kill to have a drug like that.”

“Yeah.” I took another drag. “Not you, though.”

An easy laugh.

“Not me.”

“Were they interesting? Do you know them now?” I indicated the basement door with the cigarette. He gave me an inscrutable look, hesitating.

“Sure.”

A beat.

“You're more self-aware than I initially gave you credit for,” I told him.

“That so? So, if you know me well enough to make that kinda judgment, what do you think I do it for?”

“Well, according to your own words, 'because you want to and you can.'”

“I can hear the scare quotes.”

I smiled.

“You're asking me, but no matter what you do, two people can never become one. You can't ever know exactly what's in someone else's head.”

“I think I know better than most.”

“You might,” I allowed, “but you'll never know a hundred percent. Not even a hundred percent of one other person.”

“Fear doesn't have to be a hundred percent if it's the most real part.”

“Then what does that mean for what you know about me?”

“With you, I think I just haven't found the right method yet.”

Oh. Of course.

“Well,” he said, standing up. “Come on.”

I looked at the basement door.

Despite the blood that was still on him, he had cleaned the place enough that it barely looked different from when I was first down there. A droning hum came from a door on the far corner from the stairs.

“Kiln,” he said, and retrieved a length of rope. He pointed at the ground. “You know the drill.”

I sat, and this time he only bound me around the feet and knees, leaving my hands free.

“You're afraid of death? Na, nicht wahr?” He sounded odd. He always sounded off compared to most people, but odd was the only way to put it now. I just stared at him, and he patted my face a few times.

He didn't seem bothered by my lack of response. He felt he knew what he wanted to know already.

“Maybe you haven't been afraid of pain, but you've been afraid of that the whole time, haven't you? Little fucking tease.” He lay his cheek against mine and brushed his thumb across my pulse point. “Always holding back and trying to make a fool out of me.”

He lifted himself back up. Strade always kept a hunting knife at his hip, and he drew it now. He picked up my hand and folded my fingers around the rubber grip.

“What is-?”

“Slit your throat.”

I looked down at the knife, then up at him.

“You heard me. I don't have all day.”

I tried lifting it, but my arm didn't want to, for lack of a better word. It just didn't move. I tried again, but it was no better than a twitch of muscle, like I wasn't in full control of my body or faculties.

He noticed.

He sighed. And he dropped to my level again.

“This is the first time I feel like we're really getting to know each other.”

He kissed me, and I felt it this time. I felt the something. Something in his body was tightening and becoming more frantic. I had seen it when he had forced Ren to put the staple through my foot that first night. Both our eyes were open. Amber. I could see a flush creeping across all his exposed skin. His cheeks, his nose, his neck. Bleeding into me with a something, some other kind of something.

His neck. I glanced at the sinews in his neck. I felt the rubber in my hand. One sharp jab up.

Oh. Dr. Carvey was right about cutting meat with scissors. It was the opposite of what being cut with a knife felt like.

I could already tell the blade hadn't slid in cleanly. I had shoved hard enough that it should've gone in to the hilt, but it slid off course against something in his neck and stopped short. For a split second he looked shocked. Then.

His face didn't transform. Because, well, it had been like that, between the smiles. In the split-second instants between. Like the way your brain holds the worst kind of memory at bay, and it's just barely outside your peripheral vision. You don't quite catch a glimpse, but you feel the effect.

He grabbed me by the shoulder and slammed me so hard into the floor that my head bounced against it. I held firm onto the hilt of the knife, pulling it free. Blood poured out of his wound faster than I thought was possible, pulsing with his heartbeat.

“You BITCH! You fucking bitch!”

Legs tied, there was no way for me to really dodge when I saw his fist coming down. It almost made it seem like it was happening slower, and then it came down on my shoulder. Hard. And it didn't hurt, of course it didn't hurt, but I felt the crunch from that one blow.

“Fucking Schwein pig!”

His fist came down again and again. The skin split, the muscles bright red underneath. Lined and lean and looking a lot messier than a diagram in a biology textbook.

“I'll fucking kill you. I'll DISEMBOWEL you, you fucking treacherous slut!”

I was starting to look mangled, my shoulder no better now than pulverized meat, the white of bone sticking through. But Strade was getting weaker. I could see it. Blood was pouring out of his neck, soaking his shirt and pants both. His blood, not just mine. He saw where my eyes were pointed.

“What are you looking at? What the fuck are you looking at?!”

The punching stopped and his hand covered my whole field of vision. Then there was digging, then a popping sensation. It was dark. I could see light out of my right eye, my remaining eye, but not much else.

Without sight, I couldn't tell what else he was doing to my body. Maybe he took up the knife. I doubt I had a firm grip on it anymore. Maybe he went back to punching me until I was finally dead.

In the end, I would be the one to let it in. Not him.